Irish beef access to the lucrative Chinese market has taken another step forward.

The announcement by Minister Creed at last Thursday’s beef forum that the long-awaited report from the Chinese AQSIQ Inspection visit in January marks another milestone on the long road to get Irish beef into China.

The first step was getting the BSE ban lifted, which happened as long ago as February 2015. Many people thought that was it and Irish beef would quickly be on Chinese shelves.

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The second step was getting the Chinese inspection agency, AQSIQ, to inspect the Irish control systems in place by DAFM and this took place in January this year. It was delayed by several months, but following a push by the Ministerial visit to China in September, they have now given their feedback.

While there are issues to address, it is believed there are no deal breakers in this report.

The next step, which is ongoing, is to address the issues raised and agree the protocol and certificate which can follow quickly once any issues in the report are sorted.

The final step will be individual factory approval, which involves CNCA, the Chinese factory inspection team, visiting and hopefully approving Irish factories interested in supplying the Chinese market. This is likely to be most, if not all, Irish export factories.

Given where we are now and what remains to be done, it would be disappointing if approval was not secured sometime in the next year.

For the Northern Irish beef industry, the UK is also chasing Chinese beef approval and recently hosted an inward visit to make a preliminary inspection of UK BSE controls.